Harvard Square Historic District

Harvard Square, at the meeting of Massachusetts Avenue, Boylston Street and Brattle Street in Cambridge, is a compact commercial district of mixed architectural styles built between 1782 and 1908. Its most prominent building is a block at Massachusetts Avenue and Boylston Street that combines the three oldest commercial buildings in Cambridge, including a tailor shop and two late eighteenth-century houses, unified behind a common facade in 1896. Nearby are the early Greek Revival Farwell tenant house of 1820, the Georgian Revival Abbott Building of 1908 on a triangular lot that follows the seventeenth-century street pattern, and Graduates Hall, begun in 1832 and later extended to 260 feet. Built as a brick dormitory with shops below, Graduates Hall pioneered the private dormitory in the Square. The district boundaries were drawn to capture buildings linked to the area's commercial and transportation role, and they include the street space of the Square itself along with the 1977-listed subway kiosk.